852.  Letter    to    Abraham    Lincoln.      By    Manton    Marble. 

Editor  of  the  "World."     8vo,  cloth.     N.  Y.:  Privately  printed,  1867 
Only    99    copies    printed.    Extremely   rare.    This    copy    contains    the    preface 
which    was    withdrawn    from    circulation    because    of    an    error    in    the    Latin 
quotation  at   its  head. 


ly' 


PRIVATE    LIBRARY 

<=•=  OF  c» 

GEORGE  P.  HAMBRECHT 


00 


No. 


%S^ZnatM        1^%^  (n.'.t  $^'5'— 


BOOKS.    LIKE  CHICKENS,   SHOULD  COME  HOME  TO  ROOST 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


M ANTON  M.  MARBLE.  ESQ  ,    EDITOR   OF    THE    '•  WORLD,"  NEW  YORK.    Sea 

page  307. 


LETTER 


TO 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


By    MANTON    marble. 

Editor  of  "The  World." 


'•'•Nulla  potentia  supra  leges  esse  debit." — cicero. 


PRIVATELY  PRINTED, 
1867. 


EriTioN,   99   Copies. 


Bradjireet  Freji. 


"  Nulla  potentia  supra  legis  esse  debit. 


CICERO. 


PREFACE. 

This  reprint  of  Mr.  Manton  Marble's  letter  to 
the  late  President  of  the  United  States  is  made  entirely 
without  the  author's  knowledge,  being  undertaken  at 
the  instance  and  expense  of  gentlemen,  two-thirds  of 
whom  do  not  belong  to  the  political  party  with  which 
Mr.  Marble  is  connected,  and  who  do  not  even  enjoy 
the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance. 

As  a  frank,  fearless  and  manly  protest  against  a  gross 
act  of  tyranny,  it  deserves  to  be  read  by  the  descendants 
of  those  men  who  forced  a  king  of  England  to  respect 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  his  people  ;  as  a  calm,  forcible 
and  logical  argument  against  oppression,  it  is  worthy  to 
be  placed  side  by  side  with  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill's 
essay  on  liberty ;  as  a  model  of  English  composition,  it 
is  fit  to  be  studied  by  all  those  who  wish  to  use  their 
native  language  courteously,  but  yet  with  the  vigor 
which  a  righteous  cause  is  so  well  calculated  to  give. 

The  people  of  any  country  who  can  read  this  letter 
without  feeling  its  power  are  scarcely  worthy  to  be 
dignified  with  the  name  of  free  men. 


New  York,  March  ii^d^   1867. 


To  His  Excellency,  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Sir  :  "  That  the  King  can  do  no 
wrong,"  is  the  theory  of  a  monarchy.  It 
is  the  theory  of  a  constitutional  republic 
that  its  chief  magistrate  may  do  wrong. 
In  the  former  the  ministry  are  responsible 
for  the  King's  acts.  In  the  latter  the 
President  is  responsible  for  the  acts  of  his 
ministers.  Our  Constitution  admits  that 
the  President  may  err  in  providing  for  a 
judgment  upon  his  doings,  by  the  people, 
in  regular  elections.  In  providing  for  his 
impeachment,  it  admits  that  he  may  be 
guilty  of  crimes. 

In  a  government  of  laws,  and  not  of 
men,  the  most  obscure  citizen  may  with- 
out   indecorum    address    himself    to    the 


chief  Magistrate,  when  to  the  Constitu- 
tion whence  you  derive  your  temporary 
power  and  he  the  guaranty  of  his  per- 
petual rights,  he  has  constantly  paid  his 
unquestioning  loyalty,  and  when  to  the 
laws,  which  your  duty  is  to  care  for  a 
faithful  execution  of,  he  has  rendered 
entire  obedience. 

If  the  matter  of  his  address  be  that  in 
his  person,  property  and  rights,  the  Con- 
stitution has  been  disregarded  and  the 
laws  disobeyed  ;  if  its  appeal  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  justice  be  no  more  earnest  than 
the  solicitude  of  its  regard  for  truth,  and 
if  the  manner  of  his  address  be  no  less 
temperate  than  firm,  he  does  not  need 
courtly  phrases  to  propitiate  an  attentive 
hearing  from  a  magistrate  who  loves  his 
country,  her  institutions,  and  her  laws. 

In  The  World  of  last  Wednesday 
morning  was  published  a  proclamation, 
purporting  to  be  signed  by  your  excellency 
and    countersigned    by    the    Secretary    of 


State,  appointing  a  day  of  fasting  and 
prayer,  and  calling  into  military  service 
by  volunteering  and  draft  four  hundred 
thousand  citizens  between  the  ages  of 
eighteen  and  forty-five.  That  proclama- 
tion was  a  forgery,  written  by  a  person 
who,  ever  since  your  departure  from 
Springfield  for  Washington  in  1861,  has 
enjoyed  private  as  well  as  public  oppor- 
tunities for  learning  to  counterfeit  the 
peculiarities  of  your  speech  and  style,  and 
whose  service  for  years  as  a  city  editor  of 
the  New- York  Times  and  upon  the  New- 
York  Tribune  acquainted  him  with  the 
entire  newspaper  machinery  of  the  city, 
and  enabled  him  to  insert  his  clever 
forgery  into  the  regular  channels  by  which 
we  receive  news,  at  a  time  when  compe- 
tent inspection  of  its  genuineness  was 
impossible,  and  suspicion  of  its  authentic- 
ity was  improbable.  The  manifold  paper, 
resembling  in  all  respects  that  upon  which 
we  nightly  receive  from  our  agents  news. 


and  from  the  government  itself  orders, 
announcements,  and  proclamations,  was 
left  with  a  night  clerk  about  3  or  4  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  after  the  departure  of  every 
responsible  editor,  and  was  at  once  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  printers,  put  in 
type  and  published.  No  newspaper  in 
the  country  but  would  have  been  deceived 
as  we  were  ! 

Our  misfortune  was  complete.  At  an 
early  hour,  however,  before  the  business  of 
the  city  had  fairly  begun,  it  was  discovered 
that  we  had  been  imposed  upon,  and  were 
being  made  to  appear  the  instruments  of 
a  deception  of  the  public.  There  was  no 
delay  in  vindicating  our  character.  Our 
whole  machinery  for  spreading  news  was 
set  in  motion  instantly  to  announce  that 
we  had  been  deceived  by  a  forgery — that 
your  excellency  had  issued  no  proclama- 
tion. The  sale  of  papers  over  our 
counters  was  stopped.  Our  bundles  to 
the  Scotia,  bound  for  Europe  that   day, 


were  stopped.  The  owners'  and  purser's 
files  were  stopped.  News-room  bundles 
and  files  were  stopped,  and  the  agent  of 
the  line  was  informed  that  the  proclama- 
tion was  a  forgery.  Our  printers  and 
pressmen  were  brought  from  their  homes 
and  beds  to  put  in  type  and  publish  the 
news  of  our  misfortune.  Our  bulletin- 
boards  were  placarded  with  the  offer  of 
reward  for  the  discovery  of  the  forger; 
and  to  the  Agent  of  the  Associated  Press 
I  sent  a  telegram  reciting  all  the  facts,  for 
him  to  transmit  at  once  to  nearly  every 
daily  paper  in  the  North,  from  Maine  to 
California.  Thus,  before  the  Scotia  sailed, 
before  your  Secretary  of  State  had  official- 
ly branded  the  forgery,  the  wings  which 
we  had  given  to  Truth  had  enabled  her 
to  outstrip  everywhere  the  Falsehood  we 
had  unwittingly  set  on  foot,  and  in  many 
places  the  Truth  arrived  before  the  forger 
had  come  to  tell  his  tale. 

For  any   injury  done   to    ourselves,   to 


lO 


the  government,  or  to  the  public,  this 
publicity  was  ample  antidote.  It  indeed 
made  injury  impossible. 

But  the  insult  to  your  excellency  was 
the  greater  in  proportion  to  the  eminence 
of  your  station.  Early  in  the  afternoon 
of  Wednesday,  therefore,  I  went  with  Mr. 
Wm.  C.  Prime,  the  chief  editor  of  the 
yournal  of  Commerce^  which  had  been 
deceived  precisely  as  we  were,  to  the 
headquarters  of  the  Department  of  the 
East,  and  we  laid  before  the  commanding 
general  every  clue  in  our  possession  which 
could  lead  to  the  discovery  of  the  guilty 
persons.  All  the  facts  above  recited  were 
telegraphed  at  once  to  you  through  the 
Secretary  of  War  by  General  Dix.  I 
assert  our  utter  blamelessness.  I  assert, 
moreover,  that  I  have  never  known  a 
mind  so  prejudiced  in  which  acquaintance 
with  these  facts  would  not  enforce  the 
conviction  of  our  utter  blamelessness. 

Here  was  the   absence  of  an  intent  to 


II 


do  wrong  ;  here  was  an  antidote  for  an 
injury  unwittingly  assisted,  more  complete 
and  effectual  than  the  injury  itself;  here 
was  alacrity  in  search  of  the  wrong-doer, 
and  assistance  rendered  to  your  subordin- 
ate to  discover  the  author  of  the  insult 
done  to  you. 

With  these  facts  set  fully  before  you  by 
the  general  commanding  this  department, 
you  reiterated  an  order  for  my  arrest  and 
imprisonment  in  Fort  Lafayette ;  for  the 
seizure  and  occupation  of  The  World 
office  by  a  military  guard,  and  the  sup- 
pression of  its  publications.  The  your?ial 
of  Commerce^  its  editors  and  publishers, 
were  included  in  the  same  order. 

I  believe,  though  I  cannot  state  of  my 
own  knowledge,  that  to  the  commanding 
general's  assertion  of  our  entire  blameless- 
ness  it  was  owing  that  the  order  for  our 
arrest  and  incarceration  was  rescinded. 
But  the  order  for  the  suppression  of  The 
World   was  not  rescinded.     Under  your 


12 


orders,  General  Dix  sent  a  strong  military 
force  to  its  publication  office  and  editorial 
rooms,  who  ejected  their  occupants,  and 
for  two  days  and  three  nights  held  posses- 
sion there,  injuring  and  abstracting  some 
of  their  contents,  and  permitting  no  one 
to  cross  the  threshold. 

Not  until  Saturday  morning  did  this 
occupation  cease.  Not  until  to-day  has 
The  World  been  free  to  speak.  But  to 
those  who  have  ears  to  hear  its  absence 
has  been  more  eloquent  than  its  columns 
could  ever  be. 

To  characterize  these  proceedings  as 
unprecedented,  would  be  to  forget  the 
past  history  of  your  administration ;  and 
to  characterize  them  as  shocking  to  every 
mind,  would  be  to  disregard  that  principle 
of  human  nature  from  which  it  arises  that 
men  submitting  once  and  again  to  lawless 
encroachments  of  power,  with  every  in- 
termission of  a  vigilance  which  should  be 
continual,  lose  something  of  the  old,  free, 


13 

keen  sense  of  their  true  nature  and  real 
danger. 

Charles  was  doubtless  advised  to,  and 
applauded  for,  the  crimes  by  which  he  lost 
his  crown  and  life.  Nor  can  you  do  any 
such  outrageous,  oppressive,  and  unjust  a 
thing  that  it  will  not  be  applauded  by 
those  whose  prosperity  and  power  you 
have  created  and  may  destroy.  To  char- 
acterize these  proceedings  as  arbitrary,  il- 
legal, and  unconstitutional,  would  seem, 
if  such  weighty  words  have  not  been  emp- 
tied of  all  significance,  to  befit  better  an 
hour  at  which  you  have  not  arrived,  and  a 
place  where  not  public  opinion  but  the 
authority  of  law  speaks,  after  impeach- 
ment, trial,  conviction,  and  judgment. 

But,  sir,  the  suppression  of  two  daily 
journals  in  this  metropolis — one  the  organ 
of  its  great  commercial  public,  the  other 
a  recognized  exponent  of  the  Democratic 
principles  which  are  shared  by  half  or 
nearly     half     your     fellow-citizens — did 


14 

shock  the  public  mind,  did  amaze  every 
honest  and  patriotic  citizen,  did  fill  with 
indignation  and  alarm  every  pure  and 
loyal  breast.  There  w^ere  no  indignation 
meetings,  there  v^ere  no  riots,  there  was 
no  official  protest.  But  do  not  imagine, 
sir,  that  the  governor  of  this  state  has  for- 
gotten to  do  his  duty ;  do  not  imagine 
that  the  people  of  this  city  or  state,  or 
country  have  ceased  to  love  their  liberties, 
or  do  not  know  how  to  protect  their 
rights.  It  would  be  fatal  to  a  tyrant  to 
commit  that  error  here  and  now.  A  free 
people  can  at  need  devise  means  to  teach 
their  chief  magistrate  the  same  lesson. 

To  you,  sir,  who  have  by  heart  the 
Constitution  which  you  swore  to  "preserve, 
protect,  and  defend,"  it  may  be  an  im- 
pertinence to  cite  those  natural  and  char- 
tered rights  therein  enumerated,  among 
which  are  these  :  That  the  people  shall 
be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers 
and   effects,  against  unreasonable  seizures, 


15 

and  that  no  warrant  even  shall  issue, 
except  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by 
oath,  and  particularly  describing  the  place 
to  be  searched  and  the  persons  or  things  to 
be  seized;  that  no  person  shall  be  de- 
prived of  life,  liberty  or  property  w^ithout 
due  process  of  law ;  yet  these  are  the 
most  priceless  possessions  of  freemen,  and 
these  you  took  away  from  me. 

Even  a  captured  and  guilty  criminal 
who  knew  that  his  crime  would  be  proved, 
and  that  the  law  would  assuredly  visit 
upon  him  condign  punishment,  might 
with  propriety  plead  these  rights  and  de- 
mand of  the  chief  magistrate  to  throw  over 
him  these  shields.  Assaulted  by  the  bay- 
onets of  a  military  commander,  he  might 
protest  and  assert  his  inalienable  right  to 
the  orderly  processes,  the  proofs,  and  the 
punishment  of  the  law.  But  has  the  Saxon 
tongue  any  terms  left  for  him  to  use  who, 
being  the  victim  of  crime,  has  been  made 
also  the  victim  of  lawless  power  ? 


i6 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  law  that  after 
the  commission  of  any  crime,  all  proceed- 
ings taken  before  trial  shall  be  merely  pre- 
ventive ;  but  the  proceedings  taken  against 
The  World  were  of  the  nature  of  a 
summary  execution  of  judgment.  Would 
trial  by  law  have  been  denied,  would  the 
law  itself  have  been  set  aside  for  the  bay- 
onet, would  a  process  as  summary  as  a 
drum-head  court-martial  have  been  resort- 
ed to  by  you  in  a  peaceful  city,  far  from 
the  boundaries  of  military  occupation, 
had  the  presses  which  consistently  applaud 
your  course  been,  as  we  were,  the  victims 
of  this  forger  ?  Had  the  Tribune  and 
'Times  published  the  forgery  (and  the  Tri- 
bune candidly  admits  that  it  might  have 
published  it  and  was  prevented  only  by 
mere  chance)  would  you,  sir,  have  sup- 
pressed the  Tribune  and  Times  as  you  sup- 
pressed The  World  and  yournal  of  Com- 
merce ?  You  know  you  would  not.  If 
not,  why  not? 


17 

Is  there  a  different  law  for  your  oppo- 
nents and  for  your  supporters  ? 

Can  you,  whose  eyes  discern  equality 
under  every  complexion,  be  blinded  by 
the  hue  of  partisanship  ? 

The  World  had  sustained  the  govern- 
ment in  its  struggle  to  preserve  our  imper- 
iled nationality.  It  had  helped  inspire  the 
martial  spirit  of  the  people,  and  encourage 
them  to  the  sacrifices  they  have  so  nobly 
made.  It  had  advocated  those  measures  of 
financial  policy  which  could  best  preserve 
the  tone  and  vigor  of  the  government 
in  the  contest.  It  had  deserved  well  of 
the  republic,  and  of  those  who  love  it. 

But  it  also  exposed  and  denounced  the 
corruptions  attendant  upon  your  adminis- 
tration. It  had  opposed  a  delusive  and 
enervating  system  of  paper  money.  It 
had  vindicated  the  fame  of  a  patriot 
general,  whom  you  had  removed  from 
command  on  the  eve  of  victory.  It  had 
deprecated    your    re-election.     Did    you 


i8 

not  find  In  these  facts  the  provocations  to 
your  wrong  and  your  persistence  in  wrong  ? 
Had  you  not  made  up  your  mind  against 
us  before  the  underling,  your  partisan,  had 
concocted  his  plot  ?  When  you  answer 
these  interrogatories,  I  will  produce  the 
proof  of  threats  made  against  us  by  those 
nearest  you,  and  assuming  to  exert  your 
prerogative,  before  this  trick  of  forgery 
furnished  you  with  the  specious  pretense 
of  an  accusation. 

Can  it  be  possible,  sir,  that  for  a 
moment  you  supposed  that  journals  like 
ours  could  afford  to  be  guilty  of  this 
forgery?  Let  the  unanimous  voice  of 
your  own  press  answer.  Such  a  trick 
would  hardly  have  succeeded  in  Sangamon 
county,  Illinois.  For  a  party  which  is 
about  to  go  before  the  people,  and  ask 
them  to  commit  to  its  hands  the  adminis- 
tration of  affairs,  which  has  been  more 
generous  and  forbearing  to  your  errors  than 
you  have  been  just  to  its  guides,  permit  me 


19 

to  say  that  it  was  less  possible  to  be  true 
of  any  one  of  them  than  it  was  of  any  man 
high  or  low  who  suspected  them. 

And  so  the  end  has  proved.  The  con- 
fessed and  guilty  forgers  were  your  own 
zealous  partisans.  Joseph  Howard,  Jr., 
who  has  confessed  his  crime,  was  a  Repub- 
lican politician  and  Loyal  Leaguer,  of 
Brooklyn.  Consider,  sir,  at  whose  feet 
he  was  taught  his  political  education,  and 
in  whose  cause  he  spent  his  political  breath. 
Mr.  Howard  has  been  from  his  very  child- 
hood an  intimate  friend  of  the  Republican 
clergyman,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  a 
member  of  his  church.  He  has  listened 
year  in  and  year  out  to  the  droppings  of 
the  Plymouth  sanctuary.  The  stump 
speeches  which  there  follow  prayer  and 
precede  the  benediction  he  for  years  re- 
ported in  the  journal  which  is  your  de- 
voted organ  in  this  city.  For  years  he 
was  the  city   editor  of  that  journal,   the 

New- York  Times ;  for  a  long  time  he  was 
3 


20 


the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  chief 
abolition  newspaper  of  the  country,  the 
New- York  Tribune;  he  has  been  a  fre- 
quent contributor  to  the  columns  of  the 
Independent ;  he  journeyed  with  you  from 
Springfield  to  Washington ;  he  represents 
himself  a  favored  visitor  at  the  White 
House  since  your  residence  there. 

By  a  curious  felicity  the  stylus  with 
which  his  amanuensis  copied  on  tissue 
paper  the  proclamation  and  signed  your 
name  was  abstracted  from  the  editorial 
rooms  of  the  Tribune,  The  party  princi- 
ples upon  which  you  were  pledged  to  ad- 
minister the  government  have  been  the 
daily  meat  and  drink  of  this  forger.  He 
has  denounced  as  faithfully  as  you  the 
party  by  whose  defeat  you  rose  to  power. 
He  has  been  the  noisy  champion  of  an  ex- 
clusive loyalty ;  he  has  preached  in  club- 
houses and  at  street  corners  those  politics 
which  stigmatize  constitutional  opposition 
to  the  administration  as  disloyalty  to  the 


21 


government.  The  stock-brokers  who  were 
his  confederates  will  be  found  to  be  of  the 
same  kidney.  They  all  advocated  a  paper- 
money  legal  tender;  they  have  all  coun- 
tenanced the  paper  inflation  ;  they  have 
all  been  heedless  of  the  misery  to  poor 
men  which  such  inflations  breed;  they 
have  all  rejoiced  at  the  speculation  thus 
fostered,  and  by  speculation  they  had 
hoped  to  thrive. 

For  twenty-four  hours  something  was 
pardoned  to  your  presumed  natural  trepi- 
dation, since  our  blamelessness  having  been 
alleged  to  you  by  those  here  whom  it  was 
your  duty  to  believe,  it  seemed  only  pru- 
dent to  await  your  recovery. 

For  the  next  twenty-four  hours,  from 
moment  to  moment,  it  was  expected  that 
you  would  hasten  to  confess  and  repair 
your  mistake.  But  the  mistake  thus  pro- 
longed grew  to  the  proportions  of  a  crime  ; 
and  till  the  discovery  of  the  forger  stripped 
its  mask  off"  and  disclosed   the   inspiring 


22 


cause  of  the  act,  it  grew  monstrous  hourly 
in  men's  eyes. 

We  were  patient  that  the  immeasurable 
infamy  of  the  act  might  swell  to  its  full 
proportions,  and  stand  complete. 

By  the  recall  of  your  arbitrary  order, 
you  have  not  made  reparation  for  the 
wrong  you  have  done.  The  injury  and 
the  insult  yet  remain.  The  violation  of 
the  Constitution  stands  recorded,  and  un- 
less adequately  atoned,  becomes  a  fatal 
precedent.  For  the  purpose  of  gratifying 
an  ignoble  partisan  resentment  you  have 
struck  down  the  rights  of  the  press,  you 
have  violated  personal  liberty,  subjected 
property  to  unjust  seizure,  ostentatiously 
placed  force  above  law,  setting  a  danger- 
ous example  to  those  who  love  force  more 
than  they  respect  law;  and  thus,  and  by 
attempting  to  crush  the  organs  of  free  dis- 
cussion, have  made  free  elections  impossi- 
ble, and  broken  down  all  the  safeguards  of 
representative  government. 


V 


23 

It  is  you  that  in  this  transaction  stand 
accused  before  the  people.  It  is  you  who 
are  conspicuously  guilty.  It  is  upon  you 
that  history,  when  recording  these  events, 
will  afEx  the  crime  of  a  disregard  of  your 
duty,  oblivion  of  your  oath,  and  a  pitiable 
subserviency  to  party  prejudice  and  to  per- 
sonal ambition,  when  the  countrv  de- 
manded  in  the  presidential  office  elevated 
character,  devotion  to  duty,  and  entire 
self-abnegation. 

But  you  are  not  to  be  left  to  the  judg- 
ment of  history  alone.  Thank  God,  by 
the  provisions  of  our  Constitution,  not  yet 
wholly  abrogated,  the  people  are  soon  to 
pass  upon  your  claims  to  re-election,  and 
the  right  of  impeachment  yet  remains  to 
their  representatives.  The  people  and 
their  representatives  have  the  right  to 
speak  when  the  pen  is  struck  from  the 
hands  of  a  freeman  by  the  bayonet;  when 
the  Bastile,  once  broken  down  on  the 
other  side  of  the   Atlantic   by  the  rever- 


24 

beration    of    our    Revolution,    is    recon- 
structed here. 

In  stormy  times  like  these,  amid  dan- 
gers with  which  an  unsuppressed  rebellion 
environs  us,  his  would  have  been  a  rash 
hand  which  had  hastily  set  in  motion  for 
another  purpose  than  the  suppression  of 
rebellion,  the  machinery  of  justice;  who 
had  invoked  against  the  disloyalty  of  rulers 
the  retribution  and  redresses  of  the  law. 
The  danger  of  such  a  conflict  of  laws  is 
so  far  passed,  that  not  even  a  president 
could  now  plead  national  safety  as  an  ex- 
cuse for  refusing  to  do  justice  or  submit  to 
judgment. 

Yet  no  citizen  who  regards  his  duties 
should  ever  hesitate  at  the  last  to  oppose 
lawless  deeds  with  legal  remedies.  The 
law  may  break  down.  It  will  then  dis- 
close to  a  watchful  people  the  point  of 
greatest  danger.  Courts  may  fail;  judges 
may  be  intimidated  by  threats  or  bribed 
.by   the   allurements   of  power,  and   those 


25 

who  have  sworn  to  execute  the  laws  may- 
shrink  from  the  fulfillment  of  their  oaths. 
A  craven  Congress  may  sit  silent  and  idly 
watch  the  perishing  liberties  of  the  people 
whom  they  represent,  but  this  cannot 
deter  him  who,  in  defending  his  rights,  is 
determined  to  do  his  whole  duty,  and  to 
whom  it  is  competent  at  last  to  commit 
the  issue  to  that  Power,  omnipotent  and 
inscrutable,  who  presides  in  events  and 
sways  the  destinies  of  nations  and  the 
hearts  of  men. 

MANTON  MARBLE. 

New  York,  May  23,  1864. 


>-/^  .      )  'V 


^^^  ■    VNA    ^^? 


)^  c^-^-^ 


I. 


